Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Bob Roberts’ diary
My monthly fishing diary...
HOSE who have read George Orwell’s 1984 will know that Room 101 was not a humorous TV programme, it was in fact a torture chamber in which prisoners were forced to face their own worst nightmare, fear or phobia. Well, this is Diary 101. From the outset I was faced with my own worst nightmare – struggling to see where my next fish was coming from...
TWeek one...
A short session on my local River Dearne saw me chalk up my fifth consecutive blank. That last happened in the days before the Internet was invented. It wasn’t my fault, either. I was putting in plenty of effort, covering loads of swims hoping to tempt a chub or two, but painfully low and clear rivers combined with the first Arctic blast of winter meant the deck was stacked against me. Trip number six was doomed from the start. I set off in hope but, just before I reached the motorway, it dawned on me that I had left my camera at home. Home I went to retrieve it. The journey went reasonably well until I reached the outskirts of Newark and found myself stuck in a horrendous traffic jam. That put another hour on to my journey. I would not have minded had the river still been low and clear but somewhere in the Midlands it had rained heavily, or perhaps even snowed, so the river was up a foot, cold and pretty dirty. Were it not so cold, these would have been ideal winter barbel conditions but the bailiff didn’t inspire much confidence when he told me he’d been checking river temperatures. Today it was down to 6oC and falling. Still, I put on a brave face and gave it a go with a maggot feeder. My first-choice swim is one I rarely fish because, frankly, it is too easy. In summer it is chub city. Normally I have to cast over a large slack into a swiftly flowing channel. The extra water changed all that and diverted the flow through what is normally the slack, and with the volume of debris coming down it was impossible to cast over this and hold bottom where the chub live. I moved within the hour. My persistence was rewarded in the next swim. The tiniest of bites saw me connect with a minuscule gudgeon. Not what I was hoping for, but I only went and dropped it off before I could set up the camera. Honest, I did catch it and yes, I was so desperate I was going to photograph it! And then I hooked a small chublet, a cigar, and blow me, that fell off as I went to swing it in. No more bites followed and an early bath made a lot of sense.
Week two...
Prospects were showing no signs of improving any time soon, and not just for me. You can easily tell because social media goes quiet or at best folk are publishing pictures where they’re wearing T-shirts surrounded by lush green foliage while the teatime news features snowy scenes. Who are they trying to kid? It was time to get smart. Or should I say ‘get realistic’. Why waste time chasing species that offered only a remote chance of success when I could opt for something that would definitely feed and put a bend in the rod? Which is why I found myself stood up to my knees in icy water barely 10 miles as the crow flies from home, in the heart of an industrial estate, hardly more than a decent cast from the eighth-largest shopping mall in the UK and fishing for grayling.
It’s an incongruous location to be targeting a species some, including the British Record Fish Committee, would have us believe are game fish. They aren’t, of course, because they spawn at the same time as coarse fish and if they were a game fish they would be out of season and it would be against the law to deliberately fish for them. I’d love to see the Angling Trust campaigning for them to be officially recognised as a coarse fish, because they are probably the only species that can be truly relied upon when conditions turn Arctic. They also provide income and access to some of the most magical ‘trout’ fisheries in the country when they would otherwise be shut down, and who benefits from that? Coarse anglers. The River Don may not be the River Test, certainly through the industrialised corridor between Sheffield and Rotherham, but the fishing’s free. Despite an air temperature of just one degree I caught on my very first cast and almost every cast for a good couple of hours. I would have had more fish to share with you but grayling are expert wrigglers and I dropped quite a few while unhooking them. I also netted several out-of-season wild brownies that put up a fair old fight in the shallow water. After three hours, the swim had all-but dried up and had I bothered to move to a new one I’m sure I would have started catching again, but by then my fingers had lost all feeling and anyway, I’d beaten my demons and caught as many fish as I cared to wish for. Sometimes you’ve just had enough and the call of a warm fire and a bowl of piping hot soup is too much to resist.
Week three..
The week began with an open day at Angling Direct’s new superstore on the outskirts of Sheffield, where the good and great were roped in by their sponsors to give the trade a boost. I love these days because it gives customers a chance to offer some honest feedback on the articles I write. They’re also good for networking with top anglers and sometimes an opportunity to fish somewhere you never dreamed possible materialises. But first I had a session booked on the River Wharfe with Brian Skoyles as a guest of Wetherby & District Angling Club. Brian did a talk for them recently and it was their way of thanking him, so I tagged along, as you do. It had been many years since I last fished at Wetherby. Back then it was possible to catch quality dace in good numbers through the winter months but that’s all changed and grayling now predominate. We kicked off downstream of the town, and despite the fact the river derives its name from the Old English ‘weorf’, meaning winding river, it was dead straight here. It was also low and clear. Very clear. So clear, in fact, you could actually see the bottom in four feet of water. Not ideal conditions by a long way. Bites were difficult to tempt and the bigger specimens gave us a wide berth. Even so, we managed to catch a few grayling and I even had a solitary chublet. Club member Nick Sutton, who kindly joined us for the day, gave us his steer on the better pegs. He could see we were struggling and suggested we might try a different area close to the town’s main car park for the final hour or so. It was a very smart move. A light link leger swung out underarm past a rather boily crease saw me catching straight away with a bite on every cast. This was more like it but unfortunately darkness was closing in rapidly, as it does in winter. We’ll be back, that’s for sure. Perhaps to sample the barbel fishing in summer or for some of the big perch that can show up during the colder months. Check out the club’s website. With adult club books costing just £30 a year, an annual ticket represents remarkably good value in this day and age.
Week four..
Remember I mentioned that shop open days can sometimes throw up surprise opportunities? Well, Angling Direct’s group commercial manager, Stewart Downing, unlocked the door for me to explore the perch potential of a large Pennine reservoir. Famous for its trout fishing, no-one is sure about the perch potential. Small ones are seen in the margins at certain times of the year and there’s no shortage of tales about them being hooked on fly tackle, only to be followed to the boat by a monster stripey. A date was duly fixed but guess what? Snow arrived along with overnight temperatures dipping to as low as minus 12oC. Grim indeed, but it would take more than that to put me off. In any case, the local stillwaters now had ‘lids’ on. Frustratingly, an overnight thaw saw the snow disappear. That meant the snow melt would end up in the reservoir. But we loaded the boat beneath a leaden sky with a degree of optimism, as you do. You have to be in it to win it but within an hour the heavens opened, first falling as rain, then sleet and finally a blizzard of hail. It’s hard to recall a day when I’ve fished in bleaker conditions, certainly from a boat where you have little choice other than pull up your collar and tough it out. The depth finder revealed shoals of fish suspended between 25 and 30 feet down in 40-80 feet of water and they showed no interest in anything we threw at them, but we expected nothing less, to be honest. It was a relief to return to the dock. Over the next few hours the hail turned to snow, enough to close the main Pennine passes. It’s a spectacular place with fantastic rugged scenery but dangerous as hell in winter. Hopefully I’ll be invited back when conditions are more favourable. There are monsters here that’s for sure. I can practically smell them! Location could prove mighty tricky but it only takes one bite. I did intend to round off the month with a trip to the Trent, but a quick check on the GaugeMap website revealed a rapid 6in rise. Snow melt, for sure. I couldn’t face the prospect of driving 100 miles to endure what would almost certainly be a waste of time. But I’m already making plans for next week. I’ve faced my Room 101 and come through it smiling. It’s winter. This is how it is. And it makes the successful trips so much more enjoyable. When the rivers settle down there will be chub to catch. Perch await me in the commercials, as does the superb roach fishing they provide. It’s far from a time of doom and gloom. Get yourself wrapped up, go out and enjoy it.